


The Great National City Charity Bake Off

by inkheart9459



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, baked goods are harmed in pursuit of peak gay(TM), baking contest, kara not knowing how to bake, vague lucy/alura if you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-23 22:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17089163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkheart9459/pseuds/inkheart9459
Summary: Cat is invited to take part in a charity bake off wherein the winner of the competition gets 100k to donate to a charity of their choice and all of the baked goods are sold at auction for extra proceeds. Being the schemer that is, Cat invites Supergirl to be a part of their team. The only problem is that Kara of course can't bake to save her life and her crush on Cat is causing her to ruin baked goods. But Cat has a plan for that too.





	1. The Invitation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thetemptationisstrong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetemptationisstrong/gifts).



> Ho ho ho, I'm your secret santa two years in a row? What are the odds. Anyway I went a bit wild on the prompt because the great british bake off is a fav, I didn't think anyone would mind, but because of who I am as a person it's not quite done yet. I have everything planned out, I had a schedule of when I was going to write it, but much like a diet during the holidays that went off the rails. Tomorrow I'll start churning out the last few chapters, but for now enjoy the first 15k lol.

“Hey, um, Kara, I have a question,” Cat’s new, new, new, new, new assistant Gina said, voice muffled like she was part way turned away from the phone. 

Cat was back now after her tenure at the White House. With President Marsden gone Cat saw no point in remaining with the new administration. Kara could practically hear the eye roll Cat had probably given the new man. So now she was back in National City running through personal assistants like water once more while picking up a few CatCo related responsibilities. She was still more than happy to let Lena continue running things on a day to day basis. She had told Kara over drinks when she had come back to the city that she wasn’t quite done exploring what else the world had out there, but she was going to stick closer to home.

“What’s up?” Kara kept typing on her computer. Her draft was due to copy in an hour and distressed assistant or no, she was going to get it done. 

“Ms. Grant just got this invitation to participate in this charity event for Excelsior, and in your notes it says to always accept their invites, but I was a little hesitant because it’s not just a charity ball, it’s a little different.”

Kara could practically hear the nervous jittering. In fact if she concentrated, she definitely could from across the building. So far Gina had done a decent job of being Cat’s assistant, but Kara didn’t think she had the nerves to last for more than a few months. Unless she surprised Kara and settled down, but it had been over a month now and still there was a lot of nerves.

“What is it?” Unless it was something completely off the wall Kara didn’t see why Cat wouldn’t agree to whatever her favorite charity wanted to do. She’d even agreed to that whole auctioning a date off thing a few years back and Kara had been convinced that was where she would draw the line, but Cat felt very strongly about promoting women of color in business so she went no questions asked, though she had instructed Kara to block a man’s calls not long after that. Maybe another date auction wouldn’t be the best of ideas then…

“Um, it’s a charity bake-off? Does Cat even bake? Or cook? I don’t know. It’s going to be televised and apparently, it’s going to take a few days to film because there are going to be like ten teams competing for the grand prize donation to the charity of their choice. I know that the TV thing wouldn’t be a big issue, but…”

“Email me what they sent over to you. I’ll look over it to make sure, but I think it will be fine.” God knew Cat would probably delight in it not being yet another ball to go to. The complaints about people after balls were always the sharpest because Cat found them so boring. Honestly some of her favorite days were the days after a formal function because Cat’s barbs were not directed at her and even funnier than usual.

“Ok, yeah, ok I will.” Gina sighed, sounding relieved. 

“Her schedule is clear during the dates they want to film right?” There was no reason to put the cart before the horse.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Just checking. I’ll get my copy in and then look everything over.” 

“Thanks, Kara.”

Kara glanced around the office. No one was watching her currently, which was a relief, and she started to type just as fast as the computer could keep up with. She had a lot of words to get through, and hopefully at least a second draft before she turned it over. It wasn’t one of her more groundbreaking stories, but it was still going to be the best she could put out in the time allowed. It was what Cat expected after all.

 

\--

 

Kara read over the packet that the charity had sent over. It didn’t seem like a bad idea. Ten teams made up of various celebrities and their friends or families competed for a grand prize of a hundred thousand dollars to be donated to a charity of their choice. Everything that was baked would be auctioned off to the highest bidder as well to generate even more money for the charities, so even those teams that didn’t win the whole thing still got to donate to their charities. It seemed like a fairly thought out set up and like an event that Cat would be more than happy to participate in.

She knew that Cat baked sometimes with Carter, so she had baking knowledge, and honestly she wouldn’t put it past Cat to get a baker to tutor her and Carter on some of the more complicated things, because Carter would definitely want to be involved if only just because it would be cool to be on TV. The teams for the competition, though, were teams of four and Kara wondered who else Cat would ask to be on her team. Probably someone famous to up the earnings from the baked goods auctions. A fleeting thought crossed her mind about Cat asking Supergirl, but she dismissed it. Cat would think that Supergirl should be more readily available to save people.

Also it was a bad idea since she couldn’t manage to cook or bake anything without managing to burn it to a crisp. Lift buildings, no problem, fly around the globe in an hour, easy, put things in a pan and not have them self-destruct? Nope. So yeah, it was a good thing that Cat wasn’t going to ask her.

She replied to the email with the all clear for Gina to ask Cat if she wanted to participate. That would cover their bases just in case Cat didn’t want to participate, at least. Then she went back into researching her next story. She’d been pulling at the edges of the alien homeless community trying to get an in, and was very close, but for now she needed to try and suss out statistics, which was difficult since the government really didn’t care about the alien homeless or to differentiate them from regular homeless statistics. She was in for a long afternoon of digging.

 

\--

 

A few hours later when the office had mostly emptied out for the day Kara felt someone staring at her rather intently. She blinked and pulled back from the computer. She’d been on the longest wiki-walk of her life to try and sort through the information she had found in any meaningful way, which hadn’t been going very smoothly and had taken all of her considerable Kryptonian concentration. She turned around and Cat was leaning against the edge of the desk behind Kara’s, looking perfect as normal.

“Kara, hard at work I see.”

Kara would never admit it out loud but she had missed hearing Cat’s voice in person during her time away. For all the years that she had spent dreading Cat yelling at her, somewhere along the way she’d become comforted by Cat too. Cat had been the ultimate taskmaster, but she had been so much more than that too. Kara sometimes still glowed when she thought about the newspaper clipping of Kara’s first story as a reporter that Cat had sent her, all marked up in red pen, but with the smallest, ‘good job’ at the bottom. That good job had meant the world to her. It still did.

“Oh, hi Cat!”

Cat stepped forward and leaned down, squinting at Kara’s screen. “What are you working on?”

“Trying to quantify alien homelessness. There’s probably a definite trend over aliens who look human versus aliens who look, well, you know alien, but first I just have to separate the number of alien homeless versus human, and most agencies don’t differentiate, or wouldn’t know where to go to find aliens anyway.”

Cat hummed and it sent shivers down Kara’s spine. The gentle scent of Cat’s perfume wafted around Kara as Cat moved even closer. A human probably wouldn’t notice the gentle citrus scent this late in the day after the bulk of it had worn off, but Kara always did.

“Do you think these numbers will really be that much of use then?”

“I think it will give me a starting point. Some more pro-alien areas do a separate count, I figure if I can find enough of those areas then running statistical averages on the rest of the counts could give a very, very rough estimate of the populations elsewhere.”

Cat turned to look at Kara, awfully close to her face now that she’d been looking at Kara’s computer screen. “What about trying to perform a count yourself?”

“Well, that would take a fairly long while, and I really wanted to get this out before it really started to cool down in National City. I know it doesn’t get too cold here, but since it’s so warm most of the time people really feel any fluctuations. If more resources need to be available, charities are going to need time to get them.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“That being said though, I am trying to get an in with the community. They’re kinda more insular than even the regular homeless population for good reason.”

Cat nodded. “I have faith in you, Kara.” She stood back up straight and went back to leaning against the table. “But I didn’t come here to discuss your next story, Snapper keeps you well enough on track with that, I came here to ask you what you know about baking?”

Kara felt her eyes widen just a bit. “Uh, mostly that I burn everything I bake?” Baking was a science. She had been the youngest person on Krypton inducted into the Science Guild, and yet she couldn’t mix and bake a cookie to save her life. It was a good thing she was mostly invincible.

Cat tsked. “Kara, surely you’re smart enough to follow instructions. You followed mine for two years, and half of them weren’t even written.”

Kara shrugged and rolled her chair back just a little bit so she wasn’t looking so far up at Cat. “I know, but…”

Cat smirked and a wicked gleam came into her eyes. “Do you think following my instructions again would help you bake better? Goodness knows you always have tried your best to impress me, and I haven’t been let down yet.” She paused for a second. “Well, there was that time where I quite literally was let down off a building, but there were extenuating circumstances.”

Kara felt herself tense at the mention of both her secret identity and the red-K incident. She opened her mouth to defend herself in some way but Cat just held out a finger.

“No, no, none of that. We don’t have to voice it if you don’t want to, but let’s not insult my intelligence.” She cocked an eyebrow at Kara, waiting for her response.

“Um, ok, I guess?” If she could sweat, Kara figured she’d probably be doing her fair share of it right now.

“Good. Now, you know I don’t play anything to lose, but I always prepare alternatives. Gina said that she ran the baking competition by you?”

Kara nodded.

“Excellent. You’ll show up in your best suit for the show then. If we don’t take home the trophy we’re certainly going to raise the most money on the auctions. And I’ve already contacted my favorite pastry chef for a tutorial. Friday, my new apartment, 7 PM sharp. I think under careful supervision even you can bake, Kara. And who knows, perhaps your extra attributes might come in handy.” The smirk on her face widened. “After all there’s nothing in the rules against it.”

Cat turned on her heel and walked away, swaying in that deadly way that always had Kara watching her as she went. She shook herself and turned back to her computer. Ok then, that had just happened. She was going to be on a baking show with Cat. So much for her thinking that Cat would want Supergirl to be more available to save people. Then again she multitasked in her everyday life, she could multitask on a baking show too. Hopefully.

 

\--

 

Friday at 7 PM sharp she landed on Cat’s new balcony. Kara missed the old place. It held a lot of good memories, and perhaps a convenient balcony right off of Cat’s room that she had imagined landing on more than once, but the new place was practically on the beach and held a more relaxing air. It seemed Cat was really taking to this whole exploring the world and taking half a step away from responsibilities thing seriously and her new penthouse embodied that.

She knocked lightly on the balcony door and Cat looked up from an array of baking ingredients and motioned Kara in. She pulled open the door and walked in, cape brushing the backs of her legs. She wasn’t exactly sure that a cape would be practical when baking, but it was part of her normal costume so here she was. Knowing her luck she’d probably almost catch it on fire or something.

“Right on time,” Cat said, turning to wash her hands in the sink. “Patricia isn’t here yet and Carter is finishing up a homework assignment before he joins us. He’ll be experimenting with new recipes all weekend if I know him, but the exchange was all his homework had to be done tonight.” She smiled softly as she turned back to Kara. “Needless to say I haven’t heard from him since he got back from school.”

Kara stepped up the sink and washed her own hands. “Well you’re going to be popular at Catco if you bring in everything he tries out this weekend.”

Cat laughed. “I figured we’d donate the lion's share of it to homeless shelters and food kitchens, at least what tastes good anyway. Though I probably will bring a few dozen and leave it in strategic break rooms.”

Kara perked up a bit at that. She would have to sniff out said break rooms. 

“And I’m sure a certain superhero will make a rather large dent in the number of things left over while we practice.” Cat glanced at Kara out of the side of her eye. “Won’t you?”

“If you give a superhero a cookie…” she trailed off.

“Your metabolism is completely astounding. What I would pay for a tenth of it.” Her eyes swept up and down Kara.

Kara blushed hard and turned away from Cat’s gaze to take in the bags and bags of flour, sugar, vanilla, and everything else a baker could want. “I’m sure Gina had a fun time buying all this.”

Cat snorted. “I’m sure she did. At least grocery deliveries are easy to set up in this day and age.”

There was a lull in their conversation for a few moments before Carter appeared, practically running from the hallway. He’d grown a lot over his time in DC and Kara could see the beginnings of the man that he would make in a few years time. Her heart clenched just a little bit. The shy awkward boy was still there, and always would be, but DC had done him good in a way that Kara couldn’t quite put a finger on.

“Supergirl! Mom said you were going to be on our team!” He smiled as he hopped up on to one of the stools along the island. “She also said that most of this tutorial was going to be teaching you that laser vision wasn’t a good way to cook things.”

“Hey! Laser vision makes a perfectly good turkey, I’ll have you know.”

Mother and son shared a look and Kara just knew that she was being judged. She rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest.

“What? It does. You should ask my family. I make it every Thanksgiving.” Well except this last one but she wasn’t about to tell them about the food disaster that had happened then.

“Whatever you say, dear.”

Kara looked between the two of them and decided that it was going to be a losing battle to prove her point. Honestly, it wasn’t like she had much credibility anyway. She really did suck at cooking and baking and boiling water, probably also making ice cubes…

“So, who’s the fourth member of our team if there’s the three of us?” Kara asked, deciding that changing the subject was probably her best course of action.

“The better Lane is harder to get ahold of now than she was when she worked for me, but she still did prove to have a cell phone.”

Kara stood up a bit straighter. It had been forever since she had seen Lucy. With everything that had been going on and Lucy in charge of the desert base and rebuilding it, there just hadn’t been time. There had been a few girls nights with Alex here and there, but the last one had been at least six months ago.

“She can bake?”

“Indeed she can. She learned so she could best Lois at the holidays and as we all know, Miss Perfect Lane doesn’t do anything by halves so Lucy became  _ very  _ good at baking during her formative years. Her muffins could probably indeed bring all the boys to the yard. And a good portion of the women.” She looked off into the distance for a second before turning to look at Kara. “Also I don’t think it will hurt to have another beautiful woman in a uniform to boost sales. Fatigues will do wonders for the more conservative crowd. The more bidders we have the better.”

Kara almost laughed. You could take the woman out of business but you couldn’t take the businesswoman out of the woman.

“She’ll be here soon. She had something to finish up at her new mysterious workplace and then she said she would be right over.”

Kara nodded. “Sounds like we have a pretty good team then.”

The doorbell rang and Carter shot up. “I’ll get it.” And then he hurried off towards the front door.

“He’s more excited to learn from a professional pastry chef than most kids are about getting a brand new video game. Quite frankly, I’m all for it.” Cat looked after her son fondly.

Half a minute later Carter lead a dark skinned woman in chef whites back into the kitchen. She smiled at Cat and then her eyes landed on Kara and her expression morphed from friendly to just a little bit awed.

“I didn’t know you were going to invite Supergirl to be on your team, Cat,” Patricia said, not looking away from Kara.”

“Well, I wasn’t about to have anyone other than the CatCo team have her, now was I?” She arched an eyebrow. “After all, I did name her.”

A fact that Kara both loved and still resented just a little bit all speeches of Cat’s aside. Supergirl did have a better ring, but Superwoman was still right there. Though she would fight anyone who made fun of her name now. It was hers, only she was allowed to criticize it, whether that made sense to anyone else or not.

Patricia nodded like that really made a great amount of sense to her, but Kara suspected that she was mostly just playing it cool. She’d seen enough people try to keep it together around her now in the years since she’d taken on the Supergirl mantle that she knew what it looked like, though Patricia was keeping it together more than some.

“So, Supergirl, what do you know about baking?”

Kara just had to laugh. There was no good answer to that question to a person who worked professionally as a baker. 

“That bad, huh?” Patricia asked, relaxing a bit as she took in everything that Cat had acquired for their baking adventures.

“As bad as you can think of, I’m probably worse. I think my oven thinks I’m actually a supervillain not a superhero.”

Patricia frowned. “Well then, how are you on drawing and sculpting?”

Kara perked up at that. “I actually paint a lot in my off time. I haven’t sculpted too much, but I do have some experience.”

Patricia turned to Cat and Carter. “Are either of you good at drawing?”

Both Carter and Cat nodded. “I like art class a lot,” Carter said. “I’m in AP Studio Art for drawing already and I’m taking the 3D design one next year too.”

“That’s great. We’ll teach you two the basics of decorating baked goods and you can be the more artsy side of the team. A lot of complicated design elements take a good deal of time so once you help out your team get the baked goods in the oven you can spend the majority of the time doing that and we can let Supergirl here play to her strengths.” She winked at Carter and her laughed.

“Probably a good thing.” Carter grinned at Kara. “After all, cakes and laser vision don’t mix.”

Patricia looked vaguely horrified.

“I haven’t cooked a cake with laser vision!” She had. Once. Just to see what would happen because she couldn’t be any worse at baking anyway. It had exploded. But Carter  _ really _ didn’t need to know that.

“You know,” Cat drawled, “from the look on her face I’d say she’s tried that at least once.”

Carter and Cat laughed together but Patricia just looked more distressed.

“Fine, yes, keep me as far away from the actual baking of the goods as possible, if only for the safety of the city. At least I’m my own fire extinguisher.” She blew out a tiny blast of freeze breath and a few ice crystals floated to the floor.

“Something tells me that will come in handy.” Cat bumped a hip into Kara and Kara let herself be moved. 

Oh this baking tutorial was not going to go anywhere near her way. Sheesh.

“Ok then, I think we should start by putting together a basic cake mix. Usually, the hardest thing that baking shows like these have you do is a large decorated cake. If you can get down a smaller three-tiered cake, you should be able to take everything you’ve learned from doing that and apply it on a larger scale. Chocolate or vanilla?”

Carter perked up at the mention of flavors. “Could we do like orange chocolate?”

“You like to play around with flavors?”

“Definitely.”

And Patricia and Carter were off discussing flavor combinations they could do in the cake. Kara and Cat looked on, not really offering anything in the way of conversation.

“I don’t think they’ll be coming up for air for a little while. Experimenting with flavors is his favorite part of cooking. His key lime pie cookies are some of the best things I’ve ever tasted.”

“Key lime pie cookies?” Kara looked at Cat with the largest puppy dog eyes she could manage. 

“I’ll bring you some next time he bakes them, don’t worry.”

“Have you gotten any more info on what the rounds are going to consist of?”

“Have you watched the Great British Bake Off?”

“Only every season while drooling over everything they make.” She’d had to order takeout while watching on more than one occasion because the show made her so hungry.

“It’s sort of like that. Every round will have a theme, and there will be two smaller bakes and one larger one, except instead of being based over a weekend, it’ll be over the course of a day since there are four of us on the team. The first round is going to be the easiest and therefore the shortest at five hours in total so we’re filming the first and second round on the same day.”

Kara frowned. “Well, what happens if I have to head out and save someone. That could take me more than a little time.”

“Trust me, I didn’t get to own a multinational media company without learning to pick up the slack that others leave. But also there’s no rule against super powers so when you get back I don’t think anyone is truly going to begrudge you a bit of super speed to catch up since you’ll have been over rescuing cats in trees. But I’m confident you can manage both.”

“As long as I keep away from the actual baking.”

“Yes considering you can’t do that at regular speed.” Cat smiled at Kara for a long second before going back to smiling at Carter and Patricia still debating on the merits of blueberry versus cherry flavoring in a chocolate ganache.

 

\--

 

Several hours and many near disasters later, Kara’s suit was practically completely covered in flour. It was like the glitter of the baking world, it got everywhere and she wasn’t sure she was ever going to get it out of her clothes ever, ever again. But they had a passable three tier cake with a fair amount of intricate flowers decorating the tops and sides. It didn’t look professional, but it definitely looked better than most amateur bakers managed. Kara was more than a little proud of what they had managed.

Patricia stepped over and patted Kara on the back. “With Carter, Cat, and Lucy running the show I think you’ll be just fine as long as you listen to them, dear.”

“Yeah Supergirl,” Lucy stepped beside Kara on the other side, “just listen to us, we obviously know everything.” She smirked at her friend.

Kara rolled her eyes. “Hey! I did good with the decorating. A little more practice and I’ll make cakes look like they do in stores.”

She heard Carter stifle a laugh, but by the time she looked over at him he had a completely straight face. “Yeah Kara, it does look good. It’s a good thing you had so much time to concentrate on those flowers then while the rest of us were putting together the cakes.”

“I helped measure too.” She felt her lip jutting out in the barest of pouts.

“Yes, we know you can follow a list. It’s everything after that where it seems to go wrong for you.” Cat popped a bit of the leftover cake in her mouth and sighed. Carter and Patricia had settled on dark chocolate with a passion fruit buttercream and guava jelly and it had been the best thing that Kara had tasted in the last month for sure. It seemed like Cat thought the same judging by the look on her face.

“I really can’t explain to you what goes wrong, it just does.”

“Baking is a science, but you think about it too clinically, dear. Yes higher heat will cook it faster, but you risk burning it and if you manage not to do that it’s probably drier than a bone. And that wasn’t the only thing you asked tonight that pointed to the fact that you understand exactly the chemical processes that are happening and how to control them on a basic level, but you don’t quite get those little nuances that would actually make everything taste good.”

“That and she’s more distractible than I am and I’m the kid,” Carter added with a grin.

Cat walked over and handed Kara what had to be her fourth plate full of cake since everything had come out of the oven. She gladly accepted it and set to work eating.

“Now, now children, she does a great many other things well like saving the planet. I think we can excuse the failure to launch on cooking and baking.”

“You mean she’s good at saving the planet now. Remember that whole series of disasters when she first started out.” Lucy reached out and stole a piece of cake from Kara’s plate. 

Kara could have stopped her hand and swatted Lucy away from her plate but she let it slide. There was still much more cake to be had. Besides she’d get Lucy back later on their next girl’s night when she could make fun of the huge crush she had on Kara’s Mom that she thought no one knew about but was  _ completely  _ obvious. So she just stuck her tongue out at Lucy instead.

“You try using your superpowers again after years of not using them and see how good you are.”

“Hey, I don’t need superpowers, remember? I have my gun and my vest and that’s all I need.” Lucy winked.

“It’s not the size of the gun that matters, it’s how you use it,” Cat said, starting to load some of the many bowls they’d used into the dishwasher.

“Oh god, Mooom!” Carter’s face scrunched up in disgust.

Everyone else in the room burst into laughter and Patricia stepped back from Kara. “Well, I’ve got an early day tomorrow, so I’ll see you all tomorrow for bread day?”

Cat stood straight. “Yes, thank you Patricia for agreeing to run us through our paces. I think we all learned a great deal tonight.”

“The only thanks I need is you winning. That charity of yours bought me my first set of knives so I’m forever grateful.”

Cat smirked. “Then you’ll get exactly what you asked for, I’ll make sure of it.” 

She led Patricia out to the front door and left Carter, Lucy, and Kara in the kitchen. Carter’s phone buzzed and he picked it up, reading the text. He looked up at Lucy and Kara after a second with the look of a host who was trying to be polite, but had something he had to go deal with as he slowly inched off his stool.

“Would either of you mind if I excused myself? My friend from DC is online and wants me to play Overwatch with him.”

“Go ahead.”

“Sure,” Kara and Lucy said at the same time.

“Thanks!” He was off the stool and down the hall in a second.

“And then there were two,” Lucy said a second later.

“You’re jinxing that, you know. Any second now you’re gonna get a call from work and have to head off to deal with an emergency.”

“Bite your tongue, I’ve dealt with enough emergencies recently.” She rubbed her forehead. “God the cells they designed were just the worst possible design ever oh my god.”

“Keep breaking?”

“No, well, sort of. Every time you guys bring in some other species we have to redesign on of the cells and sometimes that doesn’t go too hot. Just think of the last time someone got out when you still operated out of the desert base.”

Kara winced. 

“Yeah, exactly.”

Lucy’s phone picked that exact minute to ring and Lucy looked up at Kara. “Kara Danvers I swear you are dead to me if this is work calling to report a prisoner out of their cell.” She punched the answer button and Kara waited to know her fate.

“Lane.” Lucy’s face softened the next second, but Kara tried not to listen in. She had superhearing but she wasn’t a monster.

“No, no, we’re done actually I can be over in a bit. I can bring that pizza we found out you liked.”

Kara looked at Lucy sharply. Her mother had just been talking about pizza the other day and applauding Earth on creating such a versatile, delicious food. Lucy wasn’t, there was no way, nope Kara didn’t even want to know.

Lucy hung up a minute later and looked at Kara with a bit of a blush on her cheeks. “Uh yeah, gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

She walked back towards the front door just as Cat walked back into the kitchen.

“Well, someone lit a fire under her,” Cat observed as Lucy threw a goodbye over her shoulder and hurried out.

“I don’t even want to know who.”

“Well, now that invites some explanation, but I believe we can save that for another day. Join me on the balcony for a night cap?” She grabbed down a highball glass and poured two fingers of what smelled like whiskey into it.

Kara followed Cat onto the balcony. It was dark now, and with the view out over the ocean, there wasn’t much light on the balcony besides what was coming from the penthouse itself. Kara could see fairly well, but she doubted Cat could see much beyond the railing with the moon behind the clouds.

“I missed National City while I was gone.” Cat took a sip of her whiskey. “I’ve been here so long it felt like home more so than the East Coast even though that’s where I grew up. I could go without enduring another winter for the rest of my life.”

“Remind me to never take you to the Fortress of Solitude then.”

Cat scrunched her nose. “You could, if only so I could rub that in Lois’s face.”

Kara laughed. “I’ll think about it then.” 

They stood in silence for a few long moments. Kara missed this. She missed having someone she could just exist with. Sure she had Alex, but that was different.

“I missed you being in the city too. Phone calls are nice but sometimes.” She shrugged. 

Cat placed a hand on top of Kara’s on the rail. “I know what you mean.”

Kara felt her heart beating just a little bit faster in her chest. Things had shifted in Cat’s time away. It was less mentor-mentee and more of something else. She was beginning to get an idea of what it was, but she still didn’t want to ruin it by putting a name to it.

Cat continued to sip at her drink as they stood and looked out at the darkness. “It’s amazing what can change in two years.”

“Yeah, it is. But some things still do stay the same.”

“They do. Like the fact that you’ve always been an amazing woman Kara, but the difference is I think you’re beginning to realize it now.”

Kara wanted to sputter out some kind of humble refusal, but she knew Cat wouldn’t let her get away with that. Instead she took a second to actually let her thoughts order and laced her fingers through Cat’s. “I had an amazing woman to help me along the way.”

Cat set aside her now empty glass on a table near them and turned towards Kara fully. “I’m still here by your side anytime you wish.”

“I know.”

“Good.” She yawned. “Not all of us can replace a night of sleep with an hour in the sun, however, so I’m afraid that I have to cut this short.” She stepped closer to Kara. She stood up on her tip toes and kissed Kara on the cheek before pulling back. “Goodnight Kara.” She grabbed the empty glass and retreated inside leaving Kara stunned and alone on the balcony.

 

\--


	2. Round 1: Cookies

They baked through the whole weekend and into the next week, tackling every challenge Patricia could throw at them with some...interesting results. Cat had had to tell the maids that the ceiling had to be cleaned from a rather explosive batch of creme pat and it may or may not have been Kara’s fault. But really how was she supposed to know that the bowl she’d left over the boiling water was large enough it created a seal. Most bowls would have just jiggled up and down to relieve the pressure that built up, but no of course not for her, it sat there and sat there until it flew two feet in the air and made a pop like a bottle rocket that had scared the bejeezus out of all of them. She’d had to use her freeze breath to make sure that the liquid that rained down wasn’t hot enough to burn and that had cause some to spatter all available surfaces. It had been for safety’s sake, dang it.

Still, disasters or not she had learned a fair amount. By no means was she trusted with baking, but she was getting better and better at decorating and could knead bread pretty much indefinitely so she was more than just a flashy cape. Which was good because now that she was standing on set she was starting to feel just a little stressed. She could only imagine what she would be feeling if she hadn’t spent hours and hours practicing.

“You’ll be competing in this station,” the production assistant said as she led them to a space with four different ovens, six mixers, enough bowls and pans to stock all of their apartments severals times over, and enough baking supplies to feed a small country. It was all so shiny and new that if Kara hadn’t darted in and out of TV studios all the time as Cat’s assistant she might be completely star struck.

“If there’s something else that you need that you don’t see here, just give us a shout. We’ve got about thirty minutes to roll, so make yourselves comfortable. A few teams are already here getting set up if you want to do the meet and greet thing too.”

Kara smiled at the woman and practically felt her swoon. She blushed just a little. She should be used to the adoring looks by now after a few years, but she really wasn’t and wasn’t exactly sure if she ever would be.

“Thank you, we’ll make sure everything is good to go.” She looked at Carter. “I’m sure some of us have interesting plans for this round that need setting up.”

Carter grinned and nodded. “Definitely.”

The assistant nodded a little too quickly. “Ok, great, just let me know if you need anything and I would be super happy to get it for you.”

“Thanks.”

The assistant scurried off and Cat stepped up beside Kara, looking after the other woman. 

“Well, not even twenty minutes on set and you’re already making the locals fall in love with you.”

Kara sputtered. “I am not. She’s just a little awestruck it happens.”

Cat hummed skeptically. “Right. Come along Supergirl, you don’t belong to the masses today, you belong to us.” She tugged on Kara’s sleeve and led her into their kitchen.

“Yeah, you belong to us,” Carter agreed, “and so you should definitely check if there’s huckleberry jam like I asked for in one of these cabinets.” He was already pulling open doors and looking inside.

“That I can do.” She walked a few cabinets down and started her own search.

Lucy appeared right beside her. “You belong to me in all technicality today and every day considering,” she said in a low voice.

Kara rolled her eyes. “I think Alex would protest on that account.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t share you, now did I.” She pulled out a jar of something. “Here it is, Carter.”

“And the fresh ones are in the fridge,” Cat said from the back corner of their area.

They went through the rest of the checks and found everything in order. Which left just enough time for Kara to get antsy. She would rather the round start then just stand around waiting for it to actually start. She was definitely a do-er sort of a person.

“I can feel your jitters from over here, Kara,” Cat said, resting against the counter calmly. She pushed off and made her way over to Kara. “There’s no need to be practically on the ceiling before everything even begins. Everything will be fine. Something will probably go wrong, but you have me and Lucy and Carter to help you fix whatever problems arise and you’ll be there to help any of us out. No need to worry before anything even happens.”

Kara nodded, taking a deep breath. “I know, it’s just that I’d rather just get into it, you know?”

“I do, but if you keep up like this by the time we actually get to  _ do  _ something I’ll have to fetch some lead weights to keep you down here with us. Though if you wanted to fire a strategic blast of laser vision over at the Maxwell Lord contingent, I wouldn’t complain. Everyone else I’d like to beat fair and square, but I have no idea what that spineless toad is even doing here.”

That was because of an unfortunate loop in the American justice system, but Kara wasn’t about to tell Cat that, not right before they were about to compete, maybe not ever. She’d already heard enough of Cat’s “the legal system is rigged towards corporations and straight white male” rants, and this wasn’t the place for another, even if she did agree.

“I think beating him in the normal way will feel even better than beating everyone else.”

“You may be right, but that doesn’t mean I’d mind either way. Here’s hoping he get eliminated in the first round.

The loudspeakers above them came to life and a man’s voice spilled out. “Contestants, please line up at the front of your stations, filming will begin in just a few minutes.”

“And that would be our cue.” Cat squeezed Kara’s arm once before walking off towards the front of the station. 

Kara looked at her arm for a second before shaking herself and going to the front as well.

A minute later a well dressed woman in a tailored suit stepped out from behind all the cameras and smiled at all of them.

“Good morning everyone, I’m Tamera, I’m the host of this bake off. I’ll be with you guys all through the round, going round and asking what you’re doing, asking about your charity, asking about yourselves, the whole host bit for these types of shows. The judges you’ll meet later since they will be judging everything blind. I’m told they won’t bite, but I don’t know if I believe them. Anyway, we’re going to do a few takes of the intro first and then we’ll get into the actual baking bit. Once the baking time starts, we won’t be stopping and starting for different takes, that’s what all the different cameras are for around your station, they’ll capture all the action from different angles. No need to repeat a mishap just because we didn’t get the right shot angle.” She smiled at them all winningly.

“We’ll be filming two rounds today as you’ve been told. It’ll be a bit of a long day, but you’ll have tomorrow off to rest and plan for the next round and all the rest of our days should be shorter at least by some. I look forward to working with all of you and I wish you the best of luck.”

A man with one of those clapper board things stepped out. “All right, first take. Groups all you have to do is wave when Tamera points to you, nothing to hard. Ready, set, mark!” He clacked the board and stepped out of the shot.

“Hi there, I’m Tamera and welcome to The National City Charity Bake Off. I’m joined here by ten teams hoping to win a hundred thousand dollar grand prize for their favorite charity by baking the best baked goods you’ve ever laid eyes on, the kinds of things that would just knock your pants right off if you ate them. There will be seven rounds, and after each round, the team’s baked goods will be sold at auction so that every charity is a winner even if their teams don’t win the grand prize. If you’re interested in bidding on one of the treats you see in today’s show, just go to NCCBO.com and go to the link auction and bid away.”

Tamera stepped back from the camera and gestured out at all the teams. “Now to introduce you to your teams, there’s Maxwell Lord and his team of Lord Tech science geniuses, will their love of science translate into a great baked good,  the social media phenomenon and amateur baker Rudie Goldberg, I don’t think she’ll be bringing the crazy contraptions into this kitchen but we’ll find out, straight out of CatCo, it’s Cat Grant and her team with the hard hitting news and the hard hitting baked goods and joining her is our own National City superhero, Supergirl.”

Kara waved and smiled brightly.

Tamera went on to introduce the other seven teams before the director yelled cut. Kara relaxed just a bit as everyone reset and prepared to go again. Being on camera while not fighting an alien took energy, a different sort of energy, but energy nonetheless. It was going to be an interesting day. Hopefully the baking would occupy her enough that she eventually forgot what was going on around her.

They took another three takes before everyone was happy with the intro. Kara felt the muscles tense as she waited for Tamera to count down the beginning of the first round.

“All right bakers, you have six hours to present us with twenty-four signature cookies, 24 perfectly crafted macarons from the materials on your bench under the checkered cloth, and a showstopper of a gingerbread house that’s at least two feet tall and structurally sound. Consider your tasks carefully and assign them to the best person and help each other out as much as you can. On your marks, get set, bake!”

Kara had to use conscious effort to jog into their station like a normal person instead of superspeeding inside. She met Cat, Lucy, and Carter inside in a huddle.

“Carter, you work on the signature cookies since they’re your recipe, Lucy I think you make the most sense with the macrons, Kara and I can cover the gingerbread house and can tag team out if necessary. Carter how long do you need to get your cookies done?”

“Two hours max.”

“And the macrons?”

“I usually take three at home, but I’ll probably be able to help with other things during part of that.”

“Ok then, all hands on deck getting gingerbread dough ready. It needs to chill for at least three hours before we work with it and we’re going to need a lot of it.”

They broke the huddle and all set to grabbing everything they needed. Kara clung to her little recipe card fervently. She’d memorized it not long after Cat had handed it to her, but having it made her feel better, like it was her talisman against screwing up.

“We need at least five batches, six to be safe,” Cat said, measuring out flour into sifter.

Kara nodded counting quietly to herself. Three cups...four...four and a half. “Should I get the last two batches?”

“No, you cut out the stencils and make sure they’re as precise as you can get them. I remade them since our last practice run so they accounted for some of the spreading. For everything else there’s food grade sandpaper.”

Kara snorted. Of course there was.

Together they all managed to put together the first round of dough together in less than twenty minutes. Lucy broke off after that to start working on her macrons while Carter stayed to help his mom with the last batch of dough. Kara focused on the stencils so hard, with such laser like precision she was surprised that she didn’t accidentally use a blast of laser vision. Though considering that would set the stencils she was working on so hard on fire, it was a very good thing she managed to reign it in.

The first hour passed in a flurry of activity and Kara definitely forgot she as on a TV production, that was until Tamera popped up just outside their station and started talking to Carter.

“Well hi there,” Tamera said to Carter.

Kara turned just slightly to see what was going on to see Tamera smiling at Carter. He looked a bit starstruck and Kara was about half a second away from going over and distracting Tamera to give him a second to adjust, but just as she was dusting off her hands Carter smiled back.

“Hi.”

“What’s your name and what are you making?”

Carter looked down at the cookie dough that he was almost done putting together, speckled with bright purple splotches of huckleberry jam..

“I’m Carter Grant and I’m making huckleberry, raspberry sandwich shortbread cookies.”

“Well that’s exotic, not many people I know have ever tried a huckleberry. Where did you come up with these?”

And Carter was off to the faces describing his last summer trip with his dad to Yellowstone. She remembered the phone calls with Cat while he was away. Carter really didn’t like camping and rough living, but his father had managed to finally get that into his head and they had stayed in one of the lodges and Carter had been perfectly happy to go around hiking all day so long as he had an actual bed to come back to afterwards.

Tamera moved on after another warm smile at Carter. He had learned a thing or two from his mom about how to charm a person, that was for sure. The host stopped next to Lucy who was starting to carefully stir the egg whites together with the powdered almonds.

“So tell me, Lucy how exactly does a Lane end up on a team with Cat Grant? She hasn’t made her beef with Lois very low key in recent years.”

Lucy snorted and Kara had a feeling she was thinking something along the lines of the fact that her own beef with her sister wasn’t very low key either. But what she actually said was far toned down from that.

“I worked for Cat for a time a few years ago. We got along very well and she knew I could bake and so here I am. Though she does still call me Better Lane sometimes.” She shrugged with an awe-shucks smile on her face.

“Well she has to have faith in you if she put you in charge of the technical bake.”

“I do,” Cat said, chiming in as she walked by with the things to make the royal icing for the gingerbread house.

Tamera seized on the moment and followed Cat. “That leaves the question of why you agreed to be a part of this show, Cat, everyone is wondering, especially after your most recent stint as the White House press secretary.”

“One of my favorite charities is one of the organizing members, so it was an easy decision. That and I don’t mind baking. Carter and I have watched all the seasons of The Great British Bake Off and I thought why not. I founded a company from the ground up, I do believe winning a baking show will be a piece of cake, to hit the nail a bit on the nose.”

Tamera laughed at Cat’s joke. “That may be true. If I had to put money on someone, it would be your team, but I think they would frown on that.”

Kara felt the second the camera turned to her. She glanced up from the last of the stencils just as Tamera looked over at Kara.

“But the biggest question I think anyone has about this team is how did Cat Grant manage to convince you, Supergirl, to join a baking show.”

She debated for a second before deciding on going with the truth. “She asked and it was a good cause so why wouldn’t I?”

“We aren’t taking you away from your crime fighting duties?”

“Nope, I can multitask. If I disappear, though, you know where I am.”

“Well then, it’s good to know you’re still protecting our streets.”

Tamera stuck around for a few more minutes asking questions about the bakes before drifting off once again. Kara felt herself relax again and fully start to sink into the task of baking again. 

Cat nudged Kara after a few moments and rested her hand in the small of Kara’s back, leaning in. “You did well.”

“I learned from the best.”

Cat’s smile was genuine as she set back to work measuring out enough sugar to kill at least five small children into a mixing bowl.

The hours passed quicker than Kara ever thought possible. She wasn’t unconvinced that there was some sort of time controlling alien somewhere on set and she just hadn’t sensed them yet. She just kept doing her tasks, occasionally talking with Cat about what still had to be done, and continuing forward. In front of her the gingerbread house took shape slowly. Except was it really a gingerbread house when it was a replica of CatCo tower complete with Cat’s balcony and a cookie dressed as Supergirl standing on said balcony. Probably a house in name only, really. No matter, the cookie Supergirl tasted good no matter what. She’d stolen a few bites of extra cookie and she really did taste the hints of orange and cranberry that Cat had put in there. It tasted like Christmas, for sure, but a better tasting Christmas than either her or Alex had managed in a long while, and Eliza was more about the savory than the sweet. She had a feeling that they were going to do fairly well this round.

Kara carefully scooped up their creation at the end of the round and floated it over to the judging table and set it down. There was nothing to do but wait for the judge’s input now. She was immensely proud of herself even though her hand was mostly in the decorating and assembling and definitely not the baking. Baking was hard, but assembly, and making sure everything didn’t fall down, that was just as hard considering gingerbread wasn’t exactly the sturdiest of materials.

“How do you think we did?” Kara asked, looking up and down the tables at everyone else’s contributions.

“I think we did awesome!” Carter said. He’d actually be the one to decorate the Supergirl cookie after he was done with his signature cookies.

“Damn right,” Lucy agreed. “Those are the best macarons I’ve ever made. Those pointers Patricia gave us really did come in handy.”

“Indeed.” Cat surveyed the tables and nodded to herself. “Depending on taste, I think we’ll come in first.”

The production assistants brought around chairs to them after everyone had managed to bring their houses to the judging table and the cameras had stopped rolling for a few minutes while the judges were rounded up. Kara didn’t feel the need to sit but the rest of her team made pleased sounds as they finally sat down.

It took a while for the judges to actually get to their table as they tasted a few team’s before theirs. Kara mostly tuned out, except to listen as the Maxwell Lord team was completely obliterated on flavor choice. Yeah their weird geometric gingerbread house was feat of engineering, but did it really matter if it tasted like crap?

Kara perked up again when the judges finally approached their table. Cat’s hand found hers and she interlaced their fingers and suddenly Kara wasn’t quite as worried about the judging anymore, but she had to play it cool. They were being recorded after all.

“All right, first up these shortbread sandwiches. Says here that they’re huckleberry and raspberry. What an unexpected combination,” an older woman judge said. Kara hadn’t caught the names of the judges earlier, but true to most baking shows there was one older woman and a middle aged man.

They cut into the cookie and each took a bite, chewing for a few seconds before they looked at each other while rather large smiles on their faces. 

“I was a bit skeptical when I saw the bits of huckleberry in the cookie dough itself, but it actually works wonderfully. The tartness of the jam in-between cuts through the sweetness of the cookie and it just pairs really well.” He went in for another bite. “In fact I’m going to have another bite right now.”

“I agree with you, Tom, about the sweet and the tart, but what I appreciate is the fact that you can taste both the huckleberry and the raspberry, not just one or the other. It takes some real deftness at flavoring to pull something like that off.”

Kara turned and smiled at Carter who was blushing and looking away. She’d grabbed one of Carter’s extras earlier and she agreed wholeheartedly with the judges. Carter definitely knew how to bake.

Next the took one of Lucy’s macarons and cut it in half. Kara could hear the crunch loud and clear and from all that binge watching of baking shows, she knew that was a good sign.

“Good shine, good crunch, nice foot on the bottom. They certainly look like textbook macrons. Now lets see how they taste.”

Both judges popped their half of the macron in their mouths.

“The filling is something I’d be proud to put in one of the macrons in my store. It’s light and fluffy with just that classic hint of vanilla. I feel like we’re not far off from what we could find in Paris,” Tom said.

They turned to the gingerbread house and Kara held her breath.

“Well that certainly is recognizable, isn’t it Kim?”

“Indeed, I think I’ve seen that building most every day of living in National City. And there’s even a cookie Supergirl to go with it, how fitting.” Kim lifted the cookie Supergirl out and put in on the plate in front of them. “My that construction feels solid. They’ve done a good job considering the puffing and spreading on baking to interlock these pieces together. It shows a real knowledge of baking.”

They each took a leg of the cookie Kara and tasted it. “Fairly standard royal icing, no complaints there. The gingerbread itself is a tried and true combination done well, crunchy but not too dry and crumbly. It’s a good showing.”

Tom poked the gingerbread tower lightly and it didn’t move. “Definitely.”

The judges moved on and Kara and the rest of the team relaxed. She reached over and high fived both Carter and Lucy. They had done it and made it through the first round with flying colors. Kara took a moment to thank Rao that she hadn’t managed to screw up some sort of baked good in the process.

The judges continued down the line and then took a long minute to discuss everything amongst themselves before coming back to the front again.

“Sadly one of you has to leave us at the end of this round. We’ve discussed it and both of us were certain of who has to go.” They walked to the table with Lord Tech in bold print facing away from the judges. “I’m sorry, but this team won’t be joining us for the next round,” Kim said gesturing to the table in front of her.

Maxwell stood from the stool he’d been sitting on and smirking and stalked off set, scowling like he’d just been asked to voluntarily have his genitals removed and not been asked to leave a baking competition. The rest of his team had more manners and waved their goodbyes before making their way off camera.

“Now, the rest of you did a good job in this first round, but there’s one team that truly stood out to us today. All of their baked goods showed great promise for things to come and we’re excited to see where they go from here,” Tom walked down the line to stand in front of their table. “This team, will you please stand up.”

Carter shot out of the stool with the biggest smile on his face. Kara popped up and hovered just a few inches of the ground with a matching grin. Lucy and Cat managed to keep it a little more contained, standing up at a reasonable pace and smiling.

“Wonderful. As for the rest of you we will see you next round, and good luck to all of you.” Kim smiled at all of them.

Another few seconds pause and the director yelled cut and everyone relaxed.

“All right everyone, there’s forty-five minutes for lunch. Craft services has set up a table just off set. Feel free to eat as much as you like, you’ll be in for another five hours after the break.” The director hopped down from his chair and walked off towards what Kara could only assume was the lunch table.

“Oh my god I thought there would never be lunch,” Carter said looking off towards the direction of the food.

“Go on then, I’ll be there in a moment.”

“Thanks mom!” Carter shot off in a second.

Kara was about ready to follow him, but Cat stopped her, tugging on their still joined hands gently. She stilled and looked at Cat, waiting for her to say whatever it was that she wanted.

“You did very well this round.” She let go of Kara’s hand but slid her arm around Kara’s waist hugging her from the side. “Now just how much of the table are you about to devour?”

“Uh, I was planning on waiting until everyone had their first round and just going to town. I haven’t had any of my normal snacks and I think I might be a real life black hole right now.”

Cat laughed quietly. “Well hopefully they ordered enough. If not, they’re going to learn soon just how much food a superhero can eat. I used to watch just how much you went through at your desk when you thought no one was watching. Before Supergirl I thought you might have a hollow leg. That or a metabolism problem.”

“A hollow leg sounds cooler.”

Cat angled them towards lunch. “Only if you’re a pirate.”

 


	3. Round 2: Pie

Kara ate most of an entire platter of sandwiches. She saw an assistant scribbling down something after taking one look at how much Kara was eating and scurrying away. She had a feeling the next day they were filming there would be a lot more food just for her. Hopefully it was something good. Maybe potstickers. She was already drooling thinking about it.

But then they were back on set in short order. Everything they had dirtied in the last round was now clean and reset. It was like the last six hours hadn’t even happened.

“Alright everyone, in front of your stations please. We’ll begin filming momentarily. Same drill as last time we’ll be doing a few takes of the intro before we start the round.”

Cat leaned over and whispered in Kara’s ear. “This makes me miss doing live television. At least it was over in one take.”

“I’d rather be back in JAG,” Lucy whispered back to Cat.

Kara snorted but the guy with the clapper stepped out and called action so she couldn’t reply.

“Hello again, folks and welcome back to the National City Charity Bake Off. Last episode we had to say goodbye to Maxwell Lord and his team of minions, but this episode we have nine teams ready to go for the ultimate prize for their charity. We’re leaving the sugary goodness of cookies behind and stepping into the sometimes savory and sometimes sweet world of pies. For this challenge bakers have to make six mini pies of either sweet or savory, under the checkered cloth is a shortcrust pastry monster with savory sausage pudding, and for the show stopping bake this time they had to produce four full sized pies with intricately designed upper crusts. With any luck it will smell like a very strange Thanksgiving in here soon and we’ll be that much closer to finding out who our winner is.” Tamera sighed once the director called cut and scrunched her face up, rubbing the back of her neck. Kara guessed she’d found something wrong in her opening, though Kara couldn’t figure out what. She just prepared herself for another take.

Two takes later they were good and Kara bounced on her toes, waiting for Tamera to step in front of the camera again and call the start of the round. If she didn’t have something to focus on soon she was going to have to start focusing on just how close Cat was standing to her and she couldn’t deal with that right now. She still had things to do today and if she thought about that she was probably going to become a useless mess.

The man with the clapper came out once again and called the beginning of the take and Tamera looked into the camera and finally said the magic word “Bake” and Kara was already in the kitchen pulling out flour and bowls.

Cat and the others followed behind and took up the same huddle from the beginning of the first round. “Alright Carter, are you fine on the signature challenge again?”

“Definitely, I’m making that pie I did the other night that had you sneaking a third piece.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cat sniffed.

“Uh huh.” Carter rolled his eyes but said nothing else, but his whole slouched over posture screamed “gosh mom do you think I’m an idiot?”

“Lucy I think I have the better grip on short crust so I’ll take on the technical portion if you help out Kara with the pies for the show stopper.”

“Sounds good to me. Shortcrust hates me.” Lucy held up her hand for Kara to high five. “Come on Supergirl, let’s turn you into a pie.”

Kara scowled. “I don’t want to be a pie. When did we decide all the showstoppers were going to be me themed.”

The three others just shared a glance with one another and Kara frowned. Apparently she had missed the memo. Ok then. Good to know.

“Ok but we have four pies, one of them can have my emblem, but what are the others?”

“She’s got a point there, boss. We spent most of the time planning the gingerbread house and not a lot of time on this other than Supergirl logo and the pies being blueberry, raspberry, and lemon.”

“What did you have in mind then, Kara?” Cat looked at her.

Kara stood for a second away of the moments passing and time growing shorter. An idea hit her, she could see the character for hope in high Kryptonian, embellished and flowing. Well, if they were going to center the show stoppers around her, she might was well go with it. And Supergirl stood for hope, truth and justice. Those words would be easy enough to put on a pie in high Kryptonian and would look nice to boot. She grabbed a nearby piece of paper and sketched out the details quickly in a burst of superspeed before handing the paper back to Cat.

Cat took one look at the paper before handing it back. “That will do nicely, Kara, good job.” Cat’s eyes held just the beginning spark of something deeper than a congratulation on a good pie design, but there wasn’t time for that now.

Kara felt herself blushing, but forced herself to nod. “Ok, we’ll set to work.”

“All hands on deck making pie crust, let’s go!”

They broke apart and started to measure out flour and butter. So much flour and butter. Kara could practically feel the flour sinking into her skin. How bakers managed to keep their skin moisturized was beyond her. Her skin really didn’t care, considering, but she was still going to go home and put on a nice mud mask just because she could.

Their team worked together seamlessly just as before. Cutting out pie crust lids in delicate shapes wasn’t the easiest of jobs, especially when you had to keep the crust cold or the butter would melt out and leave a mess, but that was what freeze breath was for. It made her life easier, and if she breathed out slowly enough it wasn’t visible to the naked eye so no other teams could throw a fit about it. Cat had been right in that there were no rules preventing superpower usage, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t to deal with angry competitors who felt wronged.

“Moment of truth,” Lucy said a few hours later as they lifted their first pie crust lid onto the pie. One pull too far and it would snap some of the more delicate places in the dough held together by the thinnest of strands. Since no one besides her family actually knew Kryptonian, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but knowing her luck something would snap in just the right place to turn justice into a slang word for dick or something else ridiculous like that and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to contain her laughter.

But they managed to gently set it down on top and Kara breathed out a sigh of relief. Except now there were three more to go. She’d had less stressful situations working for the DEO. At least the contrast between the dark blueberry filling and the pie crust made the character stand out well. There were small favors.

“Next one?” Lucy asked.

“Yup.”

Ten stressful minutes later and they were all in the oven baking with no breakage with an hour left to go. It was plenty of time for them to bake and have them cooling by the time the round ended. And with nothing left to do until the pies came out of the oven Kara walked over to Cat.

“Anything I can do?”

“Not for me, my pie went in the oven thirty minutes ago to make sure there was enough time to cool so I could take it out of the mold without it breaking apart because the crust was too warm. I think that Carter might need a bit of help with the custard, he had to start over when it wouldn’t set right, but it seems as if Lucy might have that taken care of.”

Kara glanced over her shoulder to see Lucy stirring a pot on the stove already, concentrating wholly on its contents.

“Well, I’ll ask him if he needs anything else. It feels a bit weird to just be standing around waiting for our pies to bake, you know.”

Cat hummed her agreement. “I have a feeling there were be a bit of downtime next time with the bread episode since everything will need to rise, perhaps not as much, but we were very efficient this round. Perhaps we went too simple.” She frowned.

“I think you should tell that to the lids I just cut out. They were anything but simple. I think we’ll do just fine.” She reached out and patted Cat’s hand. “After all, you’re our captain. How could we do badly with you in charge. You do have one of the highest grossing companies on the planet  _ and _ you pay all of your employees a living wage.”

Cat snorted. “Thank you, Kara. Now go, ask Carter what needs done, if nothing else I’m sure we can find some way to occupy ourselves.”

There was no way that Kara was missing the double entendre there, but she just sort of skated past it and went to ask Carter about his baking needs.

Fifty minutes later Cat was pulling her pie out of its mold and and the string of curses that Kara heard her mutter under her breath could have made a sailor blush. She hurried over and immediately saw what was the problem. Her pie had leaked during baking and now the entire bottom was soggy and grease laden.

“I’m sorry, Cat.”

She sighed heavily and carefully picked up the pie and put it on the tray they were going to take over to the judges table. “Things happen. Shortcrust is picky. Maybe I didn’t seal the edges enough or I over mixed it. I do  _ not  _ want to be sent home over a soggy bottom.”

Kara stiffled the urge to laugh at the words soggy bottom together. Now was definitely not the time. Instead she reached up and patted Cat on the back. Cat leaned back into the touch.

“I don’t think we’re going to be sent home. Trust me the team from those reality show idiots she having a harder time than we are.” She tapped her ears. It had been hard to tune them out even though they were about as far away from them as they could get in this studio.

“Do tell.”

“Well, they haven’t shut up about their personal chef not teaching them about shortcrust, so there’s that. From what I’ve gathered theirs didn’t just leak, it fell completely apart and now they just sort of have a sausagey mess and no idea how to fix it.”

“Well then, this doesn’t seem like such a disaster after all. I’m sure what you, Lucy, and Carter have put together will more than make for anything I’ve done here.” She drew herself in just a little bitch and the boss that Kara had always known was back in full force. “Because I’ll be very glad to not have to spend another lunch hearing about who is sleeping with whose sister at top volume.”

Kara definitely knew the feeling. She patted Cat on the back one last time before the oven timer on her pies went off and she left to go take everything out. The last few minutes passed in a rush to make sure everything was done and perfectly arranged and then they were in front of their station again, waiting for judgement.

Kim and Tom judged their table fourth and Kara waited on the edge of her seat yet again. She knew the likelihood was that the reality stars were going home, but still nothing was certain until it was announced. Or at least until she heard the feedback and could judge for herself.

“Well, these miniature pies look delightful, let’s dive in,” Kim said, cutting a pie in two. “That’s not a color you see every day, now is it.”

“It’s a bit too flesh toned for my liking, but let’s see how it tastes.” Tom ate a bite and smiled. “That tastes like a tropical vacation in a pie. If it was just a bit of a different color it would be perfect. Maybe some food coloring next time to make it more exaggeratedly red or pink.”

“I get the guava and the mango very clearly, though the strawberry I think gets a little lost. It still is a very tasty pie and the meringue is perfectly fluffy and had a lovely toasting. A good showing for sure.”

They moved on to Cat’s shortcrust pie. 

“Oh dear, this has had a bit of leakage. The top though is a lovely golden color.” Kim cut a slice out of the pie.

“That filling is holding together nicely and it smells very well seasoned.” He cut off a bite and nodded. “Tastes as well seasoned as it smells. Shame about the leak, it would have been pretty perfect if not for that.”

Kim nodded her agreement before they moved on to the Kryptonian pies.

“My, this is such delicate work, I’m surprised it held up so well to the baking process. Wherever did you get the inspiration for these shapes?” Kim ran her finger across the rim of the truth pie.

“I’ll be amazed if they managed to do this without the dough getting too warm. This had to take a significant amount of time.”

They cut into the justice pie first and then sampled a bit of each flavor. Kara waited and waited while they kept eating. She just wanted to know if her freeze breath had kept the dough all right during her cutting everything out.

“I don’t know how it was done, but the top of the pie is perfectly done. All the flavors are tried and true and decent to eat. That lemon, though, is probably my favorite.” Tom swiped a finger through the lemon curd and popped it into his mouth. Everyone on the teams laughed at the gesture and Kara relaxed. With feedback like that they would make it through to the next round.

Kim and Tom continued down the line. Kara thought they were going to have a stroke when they came to the reality stars’ table, but they managed to keep it civil. Their other two offerings weren’t that strong either and so she wasn’t surprised when it took next to no deliberation for the judges to call and end to the reality stars tenure on the show. The best team went to a tween pop star and her entourage that even Kara found a bit too sugary sweet to listen to and she loved bubblegum pop. So they had come middle of the road, which had been expected considering.

They all stood from the stools after the call time for the next filming had been announced. Kara held up her hand for a high five. 

“We made it through the first two rounds!”

Carter high fived her enthusiastically. “Yeah, now I get to go wild with some bread dough!”

“Carbs, just what the penthouse needs more of right now.” Cat shook her head.

“I feel that.” Lucy yawned. “I’m going to head out. I have to show up for work tomorrow while the rest of you get the day off. Well, maybe, since Supergirl is always on call, but you know what I mean. Just remember whatever you’re thinking up, Carter, put me on the B team. Bread isn’t my strong suit.”

“Ok!”

She walked off, leaving the three of them milling around. 

“We did great today,” Kara said, sort of amazed that she hadn’t dragged the team into getting eliminated yet.

“Oh, but, Supergirl, darling, we can do better than great. We can do amazing.” Cat’s smirk spread slowly across her face and she winked at Kara.

Kara had this inkling that maybe this invite to be on the show had been about profits, yes, but also just an excuse to make double entendres at her expense. It would definitely need more investigation, though, yeah definitely more investigation.

“Um, well, I look forward to doing amazing?”

“I just bet you do.” Cat turned to Carter. “Come on, if you want to be running bread experiments tomorrow we’re going to have to get some rest. See you soon, Supergirl.” And with one last long look, Cat was gone.

 


	4. Round 3: Bread

It was like Lucy had jinxed her. At the crack of dawn the next morning Kara got a call about a five alarm fire in the warehouse district that had jumped over into the fashion district and parts of downtown. She spent most of the morning trying to put out hot spots and rescuing people and just when everything was finally,  _ finally _ out, Alex called her with a new alien threat that she had to take care of that had taken the majority of the afternoon by the time she had finally come home covered in soot and the last remnants of her more major injuries that were still healing, it had been past dinnertime and she’d eaten the entire contents of her fridge and then ordered takeout on top of that. She’d fallen into bed not long after and her alarm to get up to come to set had gone off far too early for her liking.

Sitting in the studio listening to Tamera go on for the fifth time about how they had to make a signature filled loaf, well made ciabatta bread, and six braided loaves presented in a basket made out of braided bread she was probably going to lose it. Unfortunately bread day was one of the longer days and really it hadn’t even started yet. What she wouldn’t give for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, her Netflix account, and the window open letting the sun hit her full on so she could recharge and actually feel like a person. But they were finally starting the count down so there she was, stuck for at least eight hours without the couch and ice cream and definitely not the sun. It was going to be a long day.

She walked with her team back to their station and Cat took charge as normal. “Carter, you’re on the ciabatta, Lucy braided loaves are your thing, yes?”

“I know how to make challah from Alex literally bullying me into learning it that’s what you mean. I’m good at braiding it, as for when it’s done rising and when to stop kneading, I know Patricia went over this but it still feels like I’m guessing.”

“Would you feel more comfortable handling the fillings?”

“Definitely.”

“Get started on those then, Supergirl, flex those muscles and make every woman in National City swoon with your biceps while you’re kneading. If you don’t get tired muscles I think that’s the perfect place for your.”

“I can also braid bread really well. It’s the only thing I’m allowed to do when Eliza bakes bread at home. I’ve learned some pretty complicated braids.”

“Wonderful, get to work then.”

Kara set to measuring out the first batch of dough for the showstopper. She put herself on autopilot. Measuring out weights of baking supplies wasn’t exactly hard, especially when her hand didn’t get tired sifting the flouring into the bowl. Sometimes being an alien superhero did have its advantages. By the time she finished measuring out the second batch Cat came over with her first dough ready for kneading. She lingered by Kara for a second before taking one of the complete bowls of flour and looked up at Kara through her eyelashes.

Kara immediately went on red alert. Whatever was about to come out of Cat’s mouth was going to be something that probably would send her to the ceiling if she didn’t keep a tight lid on her powers. She was really far too gay for any of the things that had happened to her since Cat had asked her to participate in this show with her.

“Really, Kara, the only woman you should be concerned with watching you is me. And I wouldn’t pass up a free show like this.” Cat’s eyes trailed over Kara slowly before Cat turned and went back to the area she’d claimed as her own workstation.

Kara looked after her for a long moment. Yeah, she really needed to do something about this situation after this whole competition was done or she was probably going to implode. Considering how much energy her body probably stored that couldn’t be good for the Earth at all. So she would just...talk to Cat? Ask her out on a date? Make random hand motions until Cat guessed that she wanted to go on a date with her? Yeah she was going to have to work on that answer.

Instead she spread flour all over the counter in front of her and set to work kneading the dough Cat had given her, careful to not squish it too much and ruin everything by basically atomizing the dough by pushing on it too hard. She probably couldn’t manage that. Probably. But that didn’t mean she wanted to take the chance on ruining the dough either. She could only imagine what sort of double entendre Cat would come up with about her losing control. Yup, nope she didn’t need that to happen. Just deep breaths here and thinking about Rao and getting through the day so she could face plant in her couch. That’s all she was going to think about this round. Definitely. Uh huh.

She worked through three batches of dough in fairly short order. When you didn’t tire out, forming enough gluten to pass the windowpane test wasn’t that hard really. The proving drawer was filling up at a nice rate and soon she could help Lucy with cutting up things for the filling or whatever else useful that needed doing while she waited for everything to prove enough that she could punch it down and braid it.

Except Cat once again came over to ruin all of Kara’s carefully thought out plans. She reached out and squeezed Kara’s bicep and practically purred. “Woman of steel, indeed. I imagine arms like that let you get up to all sorts of  _ fun _ activities.”

And then Kara’s brain was right in the middle of a very vivid hallucination of Cat in bed in front of her, naked as the day she was born and Kara going to town on her. There would definitely not be any sore wrists or tired arms on her part. She could keep going as long as Cat wanted and then some. Cat would beg for her to stop and--

Yes Kara needed to leave room for Rao in her thoughts. She wasn’t in high school anymore she could control her hormones. Except when she looked down at the dough she had been kneading, it wasn’t there anymore. There were just ribbons of dough in odd places and covering the front of her super suit. Oh no, don’t tell her…

“Well then, Kara, with that kind of strength it’s a good thing I like it rough.” Cat turned away. “I’ll make another dough since that once seems to have found its way more onto the ceiling than into a useable form.”

Kara tried not to, but she found herself looking up the ceiling and sure enough, there was some of the bread dough on the ceiling. Kara wanted to melt into the floorboards. There were cameras everywhere. There was no way that that wasn’t making it into the cut somehow. She was doomed to live out her embarrassment for all eternity, immortalized on the internet as the superhero who couldn’t control her feelings enough to keep the bread on the board. She felt like pinching her nose and closing her eyes, but since her hands were covered in various baking substances, that was right out. So she just closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could make it through this round intact. The rest of the dough would too. 

Lucy sidled up to Kara a minute later just as Kara was finally managing to get back into the swing of things. “Wow, and I thought your sister was bad. Is all of your family a gay disaster or just you two?”

“Lucy, I swear to god,” Kara managed to grit out.

“Yeah that’s what I thought there, Supergirl. Your Mom would never squish bread dough so hard it flew onto the ceiling.”

“You realize everything about me is a weapon, right?”

Carter walked over and threw his dough into the proofing drawer. “She has a point, Supergirl, you are sort of a disaster right now. Not that I like listening to my mom flirt with you because gross, mom flirting, I don’t even want to think about where flirting goes.” He shivered. “But watching your reactions every time almost makes it worth it. Almost.” He grabbed the last of the dough that Kara hadn’t kneaded and walked off again.

“Even the kid has it out for me,” Kara grumbled.

“Hey, considering, I think that was a good reaction from a kid whose mom you might date. He could have totally gone the whole resentment route.”

Kara shook her head immediately. “Carter isn’t like that. He’s a good kid who just wants his mom to be happy.”

“Yeah, well, I think you’ll make her very happy if you know what I mean.” Lucy wiggled her eyebrows.

“Lucy, I swear to  _ Rao _ .”

But Lucy was already back at her station, working as if nothing had happened between them. This competition was going to kill her somehow, Kara just knew it.

Several hours later all of their baked goods were up at the judging table, but this time Kara didn’t really listen in. She’d torn a bite off of the couple of extra loaves they’d baked just in case, and everything had been great to her palate and their basket had stayed up easily. She was sure they were fine again, there was no need to be on the edge of her seat once again.

When everyone got up after the judging was complete Kara actually tuned back in and looked around. It looked like the boy band had gone home. No real surprise there, they’d had a flour fight more than they actually baked this time. She suspected they threw the round deliberately, but she wasn’t about to tell Cat that since she wanted every win to be deserved.

“I’m going to go grab a couple sandwiches, Mom,” Carter said. “I’m starving.”

Cat opened her mouth to say something but before she could he was already off. “So much for telling him to not spoil his dinner.” She shook her head.

“He’s a teenage boy. He can always eat.”

“Ugh, stop, you’re making me hungry now. I’ve been ignoring it successfully,” Lucy said, hand on her stomach.

Cat looked thoughtful. “Go grab Carter before he consumes his weight in processed meats and we can all go out and grab dinner, my treat.”

“Free food are the magic words to get me anywhere.” Lucy walked off towards the craft services table and left Cat and Kara alone.

“I fully expect you to eat enough food to satisfy a platoon of soldiers, so yes I am aware of what feeding you will entail. Though I can think of something I could eat that I’d never get tired of too.”

Kara choked on her own spit. “Cat, you’re literally killing me. Killing me,” she managed to cough out.

“You still seem alive to me. And besides Supergirl, what’s a bit of teasing. Goading you to do things has worked for me before.”

“When exactly did you decide that this was what you wanted?” Because Kara had sensed the shift, yes, but Cat was the one throwing it into hyperdrive.

“The balcony of the new penthouse. I wanted to kiss you, but I wasn’t about to do so without you fully on board, Supergirl. The reactions to the flirting just let me know I was on the right track.” Cat smiled and reached out to squeeze Kara’s hand before dropping it again.

“Mom!” Carter called out behind them.

They both turned to see him hurrying towards them with Lucy not far behind.

“Can we get potstickers?”

Kara’s stomach growled loudly.

“Well,” Cat said after a moment of stifling her laughter. “I think that’s a yes.”

 


End file.
